What are the details of our daily existence? What systems dominate our lives? What meanings can we make of our situation?

This social studies/humanities course will steal from various disciplines - including anthropology, critical theory, cultural studies, economics, futurology, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology - to help us make sense of our situation.

A major goal of the course will be to focus your attention on your own life. Together we will investigate major systems that create and rule our lives including capitalism, school, family, popular culture, and the US government. And we will figure out how to interpret our lives, and these systems, and the collision of our lives and these systems.

We will detour into the future and the past but our journey will be primarily contemporary.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Extra Credit Opportunity - "The Class"

"The Class" (aka "Entre les Murs") doesn't follow the tropes of a super-teacher film. That's just one of the great things about it. For this extra credit opportunity please watch the film and answer 1 or more of the questions below in a 3-6 paragraph essay. For the purposes of this essay, a paragraph should have 4-5 sentences, the first one usually a transition from the last one and an introduction to the new topic.

We will watch the film together on Monday April 12 from 3:20-5:30pm - snacks possibly provided. But you can also watch it by yourself or with friends off Netflix (play instantly) or other digital distribution channel - such as Blockbuster Video or whatever.

Questions:
1. The film highlights contradictory agendas from the major stakeholders - students, teachers, administrators, parent. These contradictions seem to render the experience painful and maybe even destructive to many of the participants. Now that you have seen the contradictions, and maybe even have some empathy for the perspectives of the various stakeholders, propose a pragmatic or idealistic course of action for how a student (or a teacher) in such a situation should act - to maximize benefit, to sidestep catastrophe, to integrate the various perspectives.

2. Do you hold the teacher responsible for the damage done to Souleymane? Are the 14-15 year olds morally responsible for their own choices? Is the teacher morally responsible for finding solutions to the institutional car wreck that he's steering his class through? Or would it be better to see this as a systematic issue rather than an individual moral issue? If the former, how should the system be altered? If the latter, how should individuals be trained to make more effective moral and pragmatic choices?

3. Compare and contrast the school in the film with your experience of SOF. What are crucial similarities and differences? What should SOF change in light of the insights you've gained from this movie?

Due Thursday at 1:30pm for the equivalent of 2 assignments. May be completed after Thursday but before April 21 for inclusion in next quarter's grades.

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